Four Color Pictures in my Chapter Book -- Help?

I'm writing a YA fairytale retelling, and I have an illustrator drawing four full page color pictures for the interior, as well as five black and white pictures.

When I choose the full color option on the Create Your Print Book page it skyrockets the estimated price outrageously high. I'm wondering if that is the set price, or if when I actually upload the formatted document the price will change to something more reasonable. I'd like to do both a hardcover and a paperback and an ebook version of my book, all with the color illustrations as well as the black and white. The book will be about 250-300 pages all together.

Any insights?

~Penny

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Comments

Firstly, publishing a book of 250 pages is going to be expensive. For example, the manufacturing cost of a 250 page 6 x 9 inch US trade paperback is $ 6.25. Remember, if your book goes into distribution the distributor takes 50 % of the cover price. So if you sell your book at $ 15 the distributor takes $7.50, and $ 6.25 (plus a bit extra as the $6.25 quoted is for manufacture and sale through Lulu only) is taken for manufacturing costs, leaving very little for you.

Full colour books are even more expensive. Even if you have just one illustration in colour you have to pay the manufacturing cost of a full colour book; there is no halfway house where the price is determined on the number of coloured illustrations. You either pay for a black and white book or a colour book.

If you want to save, change the colour illustrations to greyscale and perhaps think about reformatting the book so that it comes in at less than 250 pages.

In all honesty, the manufacturing and distribution costs mean that self-published books stand little chance of competing against commercially produced books.

I would just leave the images as they are and select black and white as your printing option. 6x9 perfect bound. Spacing, 1.15.. 12 point Garamond. Select all text andf condense font by .1. Your cost will be under 15, perhaps as little as 12.95.